Read the entire Editorial: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-foia-0127-jm-20130127,0,4995587.story Nine months ago, the nonprofit For the Good of Illinois asked the Illinois comptroller’s office […]

It lays out some interesting information on how poorly the pension funds are run and why they need to be more transparent in their management. Mead writes;

Pension reform is about more than cutting benefits to realistic levels, and ensuring that politicians and union leaders have to stop the collusive scams. It is also about enabling pension funds to invest in safer investments and stop paying huge fees to hedge fund managers and investment banks — and because public pension funds are such large pools of capital, this would be an effective way to help bring Wall Street back down to earth.

Pension funds should not be aggressively invested. Retirement funds should be conservatively managed — and that means enough has to be paid into those funds so that with moderate investment results, retirees can be sure that their promised benefits will in fact be paid.

The key to this change is stronger regulation of government pension funds, to force them to observe the same requirements that apply to private sector pension funds as well. Amazingly, the same union leaders and lefty experts who call for tough regulations elsewhere in the economy want to keep government workers chained to the roulette wheel in the Wall Street casino: they are bitterly opposed to seriously prudential regulation of government pension funds.

We just thought it would be fun to point out that For the Good of Illinois posted this same argument, with more detail about what goes on here in Illinois, months ago.